Ok I will try and answer all of your questions. Thank you in advance for helping me. In the beginning my plants suffered because I was not able to get the machine running because of a key part not being shipped with the original machine. So even tho I had clones ready to go I was unable to put them into the machine. This stressed them a lot.
The Nutes I used were GH Flora Nova and Flora Bloom. I also used Floralicious Plus and sometimes Rapid Start. I did not even know about Silica. At first it was easy to overwater my plants because I was turning on the pump once a day. That is what this original thread stated to do. That must be a typo because the Rockwool soaks up so much water that you only need to turn in on once or twice a week. So my clones were stressed even more because they were overwatered. By the time I figured this out about 50% were dead.
I did not PPM or PH the water either. I just added the nutes to Tap water and let it get soaked up.
Next time i am going to start with fresh clones and add Silica Si by GH.
Ok, now that you've answered some key questions hopefully now we can get to the nitty gritty..
First of all hearing that you did not PH or PPM anything has me baffled.
And I'm pretty sure this has about 75% to do with your grow not succeeding.
You are running a full hydro setup with the Volks, so not knowing how PH or PPM's are in your res is putting you at a
huge disadvantage. And who's to say that you have good tap water? you could have 500 PPM out of the tap for all you know, so knowing what kind of water you are working with also plays a part. If I were running that thing I'd be using RO water at every res change..
The first thing you should be investing some money in before you fire that thing back up again, is a PH pen, a PPM pen, calibration solution (PH4, and PH7), and some PH up and PH down. Another thing you're missing is Cal Mag. Just using Flora Nova isn't going to have enough Calcium and Magnesium so supplementation in a void medium like Rockwool is needed.
I don't know a single person that does hydro and isn't religious about keeping their PH and PPM's in check.
Things can just shift too far in either direction and kill your grow.
Using Rapid start is good because keeping your roots happy in those rockwool cubes is one of the most important parts.
But watering too much in those cubes can give you root rot and again kill your grow.
Another thing to think about is what strain you were running.
Indica dominant strains do the best in rotary gardens because they don't stretch as much as Sativa's.
Finding a strain that has nice short internodes is key.
I'd suggest finding a good mother first, then cloning yourself.
That way you can be a one man show.
Having to buy enough clones to fill that thing every time can get really damn expensive.
Also having the power to run your Mother and clones under a GLR lighting schedule will help to keep them from stretching too much when you do flip to 12/12 plus save you a bit on the electricity bill.
I have to ask a few more questions though,
-what were temperatures where you were growing?
-what was the RH?
-did you have airstones in your res?
-what kind of light were you running through the tube?
I think you should start a journal up when you're ready.
There is so many amazing hydro growers on here that will be able to guide you through your second run, and have you turning out big ass buds over and over!
